A Hard Witching by Jacqueline Baker Page B

Amazon jungles, the only one of its kind in captivity.”
    “What is it?” she asked, unable to look away from the fine fuzz of hair that darkened his upper lip. He had an accent. American.
    “What is it, ma’am?” the boy repeated and then leaned in confidentially. “It is the giant anaconda of the Amazon jungle, measuring thirty-two feet long. That’s right, thirty-two feet.”
    Lavinia looked over her shoulder toward the bearded lady tent. She couldn’t see Jack or Ray anywhere, but it was difficult in this crowd. “How much?” she asked the boy, wiping a spot of mustard from the corner of her mouth.
    “Just fifty cents,” he said, “and worth every penny.”
    She handed the boy her Coke while she rummaged in her purse for some change.
    “That’s right,” the boy called to people passing them, “straight from the Amazon jungles.”
    She slipped two quarters in his palm, took her Coke and headed up the steps.
    “Whoops,” the boy said to her, tapping the hotdog, “you can’t take that in there.”
    Lavinia considered throwing it away, but instead she hungrily stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. As she turned to drop the wrapper into the garbage, she saw someone moving far on the other side of the trailer, past the lights, near the chain-link fence at the tracks. It looked like Ray. And shethought, Is it possible she’s really never coming home, his wife? And then something else occurred to her, something she’d never thought to ask Jack, about Ray’s wife going back to the hospital, maybe forever: Who decided?
    The man at the fence—was it Ray?—looked over then and Lavinia waved. She was about to call out to him when the boy ushered her inside along with a couple she didn’t recognize. The woman held a little girl by the hand. “Excuse me,” she said politely as they squeezed by Lavinia in the doorway.
    Inside, the trailer was smaller than it had appeared and completely dark except for a flat lighted cage in the centre of the room. The man held the little girl up so that she could see inside.
    “That doesn’t look like thirty-two feet, does it, Harv?” said the woman.
    “Say,” the man said to the boy who had followed them in, “this snake isn’t thirty-two feet.”
    “That’s the thing,” the boy said, “it’s hard to tell when they’re all balled up like that. But see down there, that’s the tail. Imagine, now, if it was all stretched out.”
    The woman looked skeptical. “Still,” she said, “thirty-two feet.”
    Lavinia moved closer, looked in at the snake. The woman was right, it didn’t really look that big. It lay motionless, a dull grey colour.
    “Daddy,” the little girl said, “doesn’t it do anything?”
    “Well?” the man demanded of the boy who leaned in behind Lavinia, pressing against her, smelling of peppermint candy. “Doesn’t it do anything?”
    “A snake this size,” he said, “they don’t move around much.”
    The woman made a
tsk
sound with her tongue against her teeth. “Well,” she said, “that’s not very interesting.”
    “No,” the boy agreed, “no, you’re absolutely right. But I’ll show you something that is.”
    “What’s he going to do, Daddy?” the little girl asked as the boy returned with a small cardboard box.
    “I’ll tell you what,” the boy said to her, “would you like to help me give this old snake her supper?”
    The little girl nodded and the mother said, “Oh, aren’t you lucky now.”
    “I don’t know.” The man hesitated, looking from his wife to his daughter. “Is this such a good idea?”
    “Why, sure.” The boy grinned. “It’s nature.”
    He removed the lid from the cardboard box.
    “Okay,” the boy said, “I don’t do this for just anybody.”
    The little girl looked up at Lavinia from across the lighted cage, her eyes glittering with anticipation. Lavinia could not look away. She thought, It’s nature.
    “Ma’am,” the boy said to Lavinia, “would you mind opening that hatch